Twelve Weeks And Counting

December 31, 2009 started out unlike any other day of my life.

The day's plans were to be simple. I would sleep in a little and get up to start preparing from our New Years weekend house guests. My wife had left for work early and I had indeed gotten up late. Tired and sore from a ton of holiday traveling, I wanted to stay in bed but my bladder had other plans. So, like a zombie-movie reject, I lurched towards my bathroom. On my way, I picked up my Crackberry. I had set it to "bedside mode" the night before with the goal of sleeping in. The plan - never to be used again - worked oh so well. I noticed 3 missed calls, several emails, voice mail and texts. All from my wife! My urgent need to pee disappears. Panic - I knew - was milliseconds away.

I don't know what made me see it. But in that void between need to pee and need to freak, my eyes spotted something white stuck to the mirror above my sink.

"Yes," My brain told my legs. "Move towards the white thing. Perhaps it will save us! It's only 4 steps away. We can make it. DON'T PANIC!"

Unnnggggg....

Plod...Can't see it yet. Why did I grab my phone instead of my glasses?

Shuffle...It looks like a post it note.

Plod...Yes, a post it note. Dammit! Still can't read it.

Shuffle...Words! There are definitely words. Wake up! You can read them. Huh? Wait? These words don't make sense to me. What language is this?

We may be pregnant!

Look at phone.

Look at sticky note.

Look at phone.

OMG Yes!

I remember my wedding. I remember breakfast in Hawaii on the first morning of my honeymoon. I remember Venice and the Grand Canyon. I remember all the great moments of my life. They are snapshot of beautiful places and moments surrounded by loved-ones. Suddenly, those perfect moments would share space in my mind with my dirty - someone please clean it or put up hazardous waste signs - bathroom.

I called and talked to Slick for several minutes, she in hushed tones at work and me in my "top of the world" voice.

Amazingly, the day was mostly crap-tastic and I didn't care. BABY! Clean... BABY! Grocery store... BABY! This is the worst...BEST day ever!

Best, except for 2 weeks later at the ultra-sound when the technician said, "And here's the second sack."

Brain to ears! Did she just say 2nd sack? What's going on?

"And here's the 2nd heart beat."

OK, seriously, what's wrong with you ears? She's saying something that doesn't compute. Get her to say it again.

At which point, Slick pulled herself together long enough to confirm that this woman was not crazy or insane. Yes, we are having twins.

Not One but TWO!

The odds of twins according to the internets is less than 3%. Twins are most likely to occur if you use fertility drugs, are over 45, have family history of twins, are born in places like Massachusetts or Nigeria. Not being in any of those statical categories, one might think we're "safe."

Never tell me the odds!

So amazingly improbably is this whole twin thing that it took us several minutes to convince my sister that we weren't shitting her. She believed baby. Heck, she figured out Slick was pregnant by reading between the lines in a cryptic email where we begged out of a family event this summer. But twins? I had to swear to her that we were not lying. It's just not the kind of gag I could pull.

The family all knows. Last week we started telling friends. Today, 12 weeks +1, I'm finally breaking my blog silence and writing about it. It's literally been killing me to not write about this. Pregnant with twins is a constant source of material.

My father apparently stops mid-thought sometimes, looks at my mom with this incredulous look and says, "Twins?" My mother-in-law saw the ultra-sound for the first time this weekend and was just dumbstruck even though she's known for weeks. And our friends. Avouz was so happy for us but unsurprised when we told him Slick was pregnant, but utterly speechless (really hard to do) when we added the twins part.

And before you ask. We have no idea - for at least 6 more weeks - what their genders are.

More to follow...